Race for Life

Last Sunday's Race For Life went well. I completed in about 31 minutes 45 seconds and Bek was very close behind.

It was quite an emotional day, especially seeing who the other runners were running for and just how many people have been affected by cancer. It wasn't always possible to work out how many were cancer survivors and others not and was very thought-provoking.

I've raised almost £500 so far. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated. I haven't been able to thank everyone individually as I don't have their email addresses. It's very much appreciated.

For those who haven't sponsored me yet, but would like to, you can sponsor me online at http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/zoe_macgechan. All donations gratefully received!

Long time, no post

So, I've been away. It could have something to do with the impending inspection, maybe it's because I've had to sign the Official Secrets Act, or maybe I'm halfway towards getting a life in this shoddy little backwater. I guess I wouldn't go quite as far as that, but I do at least spend a lesser proportion of my time ironing my teenaged brother's underwear (there's no getting away from folding it, else it would just rot on the line).

I haven't completely salvaged a social life - I've mainled been hanging around the locals, with the locals - but I did manage to cram a fair bit into my bank holiday weekend. First, going to Haverhill's first Private View in a friend's shed. Then, I dined at the fantastic - and expensive - Fox on Friday. They've hoiked up their prices and their portions - so it was a whopping bill following a whopping fill. I'll bore you with the details: I had a sumptuous goat's cheese bruschetta starter and a fairly good steak, although it disappointed in comparison to the lamb sat on the plate opposite (my worst dining fear come true: dinner envy). The cheese board made up for it, as I knew it would.

On Saturday, I got down to Gillian's via Oxford Circus Top Shop, but managed to arrive without any Mossy fashion extras. Not so disappointing when I finally got to get a better look at them a day later. We went out in Camden to a bar that strived to be cool: deck chairs with rock stars (and an exceedingly large number with Junkie Doherty's face), mattresses in trellised private areas, Alice in Wonderland strolling around with her rodent and behatted companions and a 'saucy' Queen of Hearts right out of the Lock's market, including PVC cape and killer heels. It was nice, but rather too contrived and made me, for once, not feel I was missing out. I could not be bothered to get involved in that sort of game at the moment!

After dinner on Friday, I'd got a text from my sister saying the new niece was on the way. She finally arrived, a drawn out 30 hours later on Sunday morning. So I got over to Guildford, flowers and stuffed bunny in hand, to meet Nancy Frances (pictures sure to follow). She was a lovely little 7lb 5oz and slept almost entirely through my visit.

On Monday, I got back to Cambridge and checked out the city's only Japanese restaurant: decked out with Wagamamarian benches, but providing more authentic fare. The tsukune was great (and the waitress did her bit to add the air of Nippon by not understanding my order), the sushi as fresh as you could hope, but the yakisoba was plain old chow mein. I will be heading back, but hope not to get a pube in my bento next time.

Akemashite Omedeto!

Happy New Year. It feels a long time since Christmas and a bit pointless to send out any overly festive greetings. I'll just assume everyone enjoyed themselves as best they could. I doubt few could beat Bek spending it on a yacht in Sydney Harbour, although Rachel's Malaysian beach might just tie. I spent mine in Olde Guildford Towne, not a bad place, if you've got a penny or two to spend.





Much the same can be said of New York, where my mother, sister and I went for some Christmas shopping. In accordance with tradition, I mainly spent on myself (though not anywhere near enough) and we generally just trouped around baby shops cooing over the smallest babygrows we could get hold of (not so small in the U. S. of A, as you'd imagine). We did also have a helicopter tour of the city, dine in a revolving restaurant and watched the Producers (even non-musical fans should see it, honestly Angus!). I briefly lamented over Matthew Broderick's absence, but just couldn't picture him skipping around the stage with the same gusto as his replacement.

New York was fantastic: the sort of place you could live for a few years. I didn't see anywhere near as much as I'd have liked, although I flukily managed to take advantage of Target Fridays, when MOMA is free, and whizzed around there in twenty minutes, most of which were spent choosing postcards in the giftshop. I can't afford to collect fine art so gobble up photo album-sized replicas. Sad, ne?


I met my old student, Yuka, and got way too drunk as she snubbed Japanese food, but stayed true to her national identity by avoiding as much of the wine as she could, despite it being a hard-won prize. We were asked for ID, mainly because she's only just 21 and looks younger and I had to fight to convince the waitress I'm old enough to drink.




The encounter may have put me off New Yorkers. They seem to need to tell you off or teach you things. As I expected to get drunk with Yuka, I didn't take out my passport in case I lost it (sensible, you'd think) but the waitress at the restaurant patronisingly chided, 'this is New York, honey, you should always carry ID'. I told her I was almost 30 and hadn't imagined it would be a problem, but she had annoyingly stopped listening by then.

Yesterday I started at the prison. The was a shutdown, so no prisoners were allowed out and I missed my first class. It would have been great, had I not missed out on almost a whole night's sleep hoping it would go well. I taught the same lesson to the afternoon group, who didn't warm to me quite so well once they knew I wasn't hanging around to be their regular teacher. One still asked to switch to my morning class, but the others just grumbled that it was 'shit' and 'boring' and tried to shirk the work. Once I'd agreed, but said they had to do it anyway, they got on with it.

This morning I taught my real class. Only one has changed, so I knew what I was dealing with and they were all pleased to see me (except one who hadn't been released). They loved the lesson and I had to rein myself and them in when I was trying to demonstrate how to hold a balloon debate and they used me as an example. As nice as it would have been to stand and listen to men who haven't seen a woman for years say I'm good-looking, I really couldn't let it go on. The guy who should have been released also said I was a good, interesting teacher: this made the others balk far more than the other compliments, but mainly because they don't see it as flattering to be good at such a thing. Right, I'm off to find a suitable article in Viz for proof-reading.

It's a London thing

Jo had one of her fleeting visits from Athens this weekend, so I popped to London to meet her . An expensive, but worthwhile exercise. On the bus into Cambridge, I had to listen to some locals berating all the 'Chinks' slowing the bus by requesting every stop. Only one Chinese student had used the bus. Their racism is hugely outdated, the Chinese in Cambridge are by now probably third- or fourth-generation and are quietly muttering about immigrants from the Caucasus.

Jo and I met in Oxford Circus, our biggest mistake, and the pedestrian undercurrent hauled us into a heaving Top Shop. One look at the Soviet-style queue forced us back out and towards the V&A's fashion exhibition, where we laughed at how tiring it would have been to been an original mod, fighting your way through the trouser-suited idiots of Carnaby Street. Fearing a two-hour transport-enduced famine, I sought out a very cheap Japanese bento shop in South Kensington and I stuffed myself full of over-spicy yakisoba while lamenting the loss of izakayas from my life. It was strange spending the day in London as a tourist: you're constantly jostled by shoppers ramming shoe boxes in your ribs and have to really hunt out sensibly priced eateries. I am also slowly becoming disorientated on the Tube, like a real outsider.

It was lovely seeing Jo, but I really didn't want to come back. As we strolled through Soho to meet up with her boyfriend, we passed loads of little bars and restaurants whose windows I wanted to press my nose onto. I was quite sad on the train leaving it all behind - more so when I missed the Haverhill bus by ten minutes and had to pass the time in a pub by Cambridge train station. Cash-free, I was forced to try the Osborne, next to the much more savoury Flying Pig, to see if they would accept cards. Fortunately not, as I had to watch an alcoholic barman swaying and squaring up to a 24-year-old he suspected of underage drinking, all while a gaggle of 15-year-olds drank pints and played pool unmolested.

The green green grass of home

Firstly, I'd really like to get stuck into my ex-employer for being an utter cunt. Having kept a £300 deposit from my last pay cheque, they finally returned the remaining £10 this week, having shaved off £100 for cleaning (although I naively missed sleep because I couldn't afford to lose any cash) and a further £110 for my replacement's hotel, as well as a little extra for the hotel I stayed in when I first arrived, which I have foolishly imagined was part of the extortionate sum deducted from my first five pay packets. If you intend to save money in Japan, don't work for Shane. While I was very pleased to not have to teach American English, I am exceedingly bitter at being robbed in the festive season. My ex-boss being a spineless fantasist didn't help. Thank you for listening to my rage.

Otherwise, I went up the prison and loved it. I went up the prison to observe my class this week. The other teacher is extremely lazy, so it was quite an involved obversation. It was fine though. I managed to show the prisoners I wouldn't be a pushover, despite being a young woman and they showed me that they hadn't had a sniff of a woman for an age and it would be fine whatever. My class were quite laid back, but other inmates were pushing their noses up to the glass of the classroom door to check me out, some trying to make me shake their hands or give them some contact and others asking if they could switch to my class. I feel it was a very modern take on Daniel in the lion's den: my explaining to use a colon was much like removing the prisoners' metaphorical thorns.

It's nice to know I'm still holding my own, even though I'm back to British portions. I've caused quite a stir at the factory I'm temping at and am getting sexually harassed by the local scout leader at least once a day and the warehouse supervisor put a card through the door with his phone number and an invitation to keep me company. Fortunately, I already had plans. I wouldn't want to get in the way of him seeing either of his kids.

I'm practically destitute as I'm being paid in village pounds, but spending as many weekends as possible in London. Last week I visited my beloved Vidal Sassoon and had my haircut by a yuong Osakan who nearly wet herself when I spoke in garbled Japanese. Each of the hairdressers had gifts for their 'models', but as I tried to return the Japanese hospitality I have so often dined out on and invited them to the pub, they were fighting to find me extra gifts. One girl eventually gave me a vacuum packed pack of teabags her mother had obviously stuffed into her luggage. Fortunately, they didn't have time to meet so I treated myself to some dry sushi from Wasabi and watched TV all night.

I did make it out to a houseparty the following night, but after having a small nap among the coats, I lost the rest of the night searching for my friend's handbag, which was under the sofa, but my dress was too short for my to check myself so it stayed there until around 6am when I finally planted the idea it was there in someone else's head.

Next week, my mum, sister and I are off to New York where I'm going to have to make my mum pay for her own Christmas presents. A helicoptor tour around the city will be also involved and sitting through the Producers. Fortunately, Guys and Dolls wasn't showing.

I will soon start charting the culinary conversations I have to sit through at work ("Do you like rice?" "I like rice, but Brian doesn't like rice," "Yeah, I like rice, but Dave doesn't, Anne, do you like rice?"). Have you ever heard of an office with a constant running buffet?! This might be why I'm thickening up around the middle, but it will all drop off when I'm at the prison, where I can only eat at five hour intervals, so I will soon be sporting the jutting hips of a catwalk anorexic, minus the purging vommy smell.

Love and Mr Kipling mince pies.

Sayonara Saitama

I'm writing this (possibly last entry) from England. I've finally made it back home. So far the jetlag has been negligable and the Stilton plentiful. I feel constantly full, but it's all good so far.

In some ways it's a shame to come back just as I've finally made some good friend. Lisa, Yoriko, Shozo, Pat and various others are possibly people who will drift now I've finally fled Omiya. I'll also miss the others, who I had more time to get to know and therefore will miss even more: Raju, George, Jerry... They have been true friends and extremely kind to me. Accordingly, I've put all my efforts into making some good memories with everyone and have, as a consequence, begun to experience true Japanese life - sleeping for only four hours a day and arranging appointments at midnight after I've spent time with various groups of friends.

I didn't manage to say goodbye to my new fan at Lawsons. Recently, I popped in for some bread and gave her some change to avoid getting too much shrapnel back. She was stunned and explained, with extravagant gestures, that she`s a bit thick and wouldn`t have thought to do that. I laughed and said she wasn`t and she then gasped at the proficiency of my Japanese and asked how long I`d been here. I told her a year, but explained that I didn`t understand much at all. To prove this to her, I confused `understand` with `forget` so either sounded massively stupid or very cocky, but she was too busy scuttling off to tell her mate to listen.

Last weekend seems so long ago. On Friday, I finally managed to get to Kamakura, after a year of unfulfilled pledges. Stupidly, I got off the train at the right place, but panicked, got back on and went back to Kita Kamakura, so missed Daibuttsu, the enormous Buddha everyone goes there to see. I did try to take the trekking path up the mountain, but chickened out one temple and a few metres up some crumbling stone steps at the bottom of the trail. Instead, I loafed around Kita Kamakura and saw more than enough to satiate my small appetite for temples and the like. When you've see one temple...

I was too lazy to ask if I was on the right train home and so shot off towards the airport a week early and almost missed my own leaving do. The whole misadventure justified itself when I spotted a sumo wrestler on the train and was able to tick off another sight from my list. The leaving do itself was eventually fun. We bickered over where to go for food, too many people dropping out to go to the izakaya I'd booked, then enough stragglers making up the original numbers. The second place wasn't too bad, a bit too 'theme restaurant' for my liking, but probably more appropriate for a party mood than the traditional izakaya I'd planned. Afterwards, we went to the obligatory karaoke until the small hours got big again and staggered home under misty grey skies.

On Saturday, having turned down a sudden invitation to camp in the mountains with 20 Australians, I headed to Kichijoji to meet up with Natalie who is refreshed and single having come back from teaching in Hokkaido in the summer. It's a shame she didn't get around to the separation sooner. It was coming for a while and we could have both done with someone to go on the pull with.

Jerry and I headed off into the mountains for a spot of horse-riding on Sunday. Only a spot, mind. We drove for almost three hours to reach Ogose, in northern Saitama, to ride for less than an hour. It was in a stunning spot though and, having a paralysing fear of heights, I was glad not to gallop up the mountain. It was lovely. The weather was perfect, the view stunning and Jerry's sense of direction reliably bad. It was just missing his cowboy hat.

That night, I met up with Shozo and attempted a monolingual date. It was a bit of an intimidating washout at first. I couldn't even bring myself to ask what he did for work, already vaguely knowing and appreciating that it would be impossible to explain to me in baby Japanese. We passed some time flicking through my handwritten phrasebook (him correcting my Japanese, until I asked about his level of English), then I let slip that I like an izakaya, we drank up, left the bistro and headed off somewhere more earthy for some sake and a chat about why so many Japanese girls pair off with gaijin men, but so rarely gaijin women and Japanese men. My favourite topic. I became immediately fluent.

The last week at work was full of goodbyes, some harder than others. I know I won't see any of these people again and some of them were real favourites of mine. After my last day with Yoshiko, I headed into Tokyo to meet up with Shozo and some his friends. I was tired and resenting the journey, thinking he just wanted to spend time with his mates and have a girl at hand to show off, but his 'mates' were his friends sister and mother and we spent the night at a yatai, an outside izakaya, practising Japanese and eating all sorts of yakitori (lots and lots of offal, which I had to try to explain was something we would ordinarily throw in the bin in Britain). On Tuesday, I met Jerry for yakiniku, but couldn't drag myself from the George so made do with a roast beef sandwich and explained the finer points of seagulling to George's customers in pigeon Japanese. I now know the word for 'spunk' so this is easier than you might think.

I said goodbye to Lisa and Andy the following night and the night after that, Shozo took me to his friend's bistro. Arriving as 'special guest' again, his friend opened us a bottle of Don Perignon as Shozo explained that, in Japan, it's usual to go to high school for three years, but he and his friends had gone for four.

I met up with George on Friday afternoon and found a wonderful French bar I already miss in Ginza. I wish I'd found it before. We were both excited by the small amount of beauty it possesses and which eclipses any glimmer of scenery in Saitama. Sadly, we couldn't go on an all-day bender as I was meeting my old ladies for gay kabuki. First we had a coach ride through nighttime Tokyo, then sukiyaki in an old restaurant in Asakusa before taking in the New Half Show (new halves being newly surgeried transexuals that you have to spot from the real women in the show). My god, what an experience. I was stung with guilt when, in the first dance routine, a gay dancer simulated oral sex on the transvestite, Jennifer, before she then dropped to her knees and mimed a blow job. It did start rude and get better, but I felt for Takako when I thought she'd have to sit through an hour of it. I shouldn't have babied her. Afterwards, they all seemed like it was the best night of their lives.

Japan has been quite a challenge and an experience. I can`t say I`ve enjoyed it, but I`ve laughed too much to say I hate it too. I`ve been out and seen more in the past few weeks than I had before and it`s been great. I am sad that I am coming home before I get to live in Tokyo proper, but I am also quite relieved to be heading back to a far more normal country. Japan has serious issues.

Tokyo nights, Omiya daze

The keyboard is mightier than the sword. In my hands, at least, because I couldn`t lift a sword. It seems my little missives have been upsetting a friend of mine (and perhaps more!) who thought I was writing about him when complaining about the low-grade male compatriots blighting our country`s image in Japan (this one is about you, but those ones weren`t). I`ve been desperate for company in my time in Japan, but never to the point to actually stooping to spending time with these losers. People who have seen me when I`ve not been paid to be there can generally assume they make the grade and have a Zoe-approved kite mark. Sorry for any confusion or upset. Still, it is hardly the time to be complaining and the kite mark can always be withdrawn.

Rachel came to enjoy my penultimate weekend in Tokyo and we did a fair bit of sight-seeing, perhaps more than I have managed in the past few months alone. On Saturday night, we went into Shibuya to go to a hip hop club and met up with Riaz, Sean and some others, although we only met briefly and stared across a crowded Hub as we couldn`t get a table to fit everyone in. Edwin then somehow convinced everyone to traipse over to Roppongi to meet him to drink JD and coke in the street, although everyone had initially planned to go out in Shibuya. Edwin is silently obstinate and no one so far (aside from, of course, me) has crossed him. I do hope his time comes. He`s a smug little shit. I then forced everyone to go into quite an awful bar which claimed to have a Russian theme, but only had a couple of Eastern European hookers holed up in a corner. It also had a group of young indie lads to whom a pair of Japanese groupies had attached themselves, imagining they were in a bad. One of them tried to tell Yoriko they were in a band too, of course she believed them, but their mate dropped them in it not too much later. She was still smitted with the neckkerchiefs and shaggy hair. I thought they looked like a pack of terriers.

After a couple of hours on Costa del Roppongi watching girls with no brains rump-shake to the death over one fairly kakkoii Japanese boy, before flicking their hair in our faces to warn us off the terriers, we decided to head off to Shibuya. I just couldn`t bear to waste another minute on a low-grade Greek island holiday, so off we went to Shibuya for a night of hip hop in Harlem. Sadly, I had to hand my camera over when we arrived, so I couldn`t snap any of the wide boys on display. I necked with a young judo student who wants to be a PE teacher when he grows up (he was VERY young, though he can legally drink) and he pointed out one of Japan`s best K1 fighters in the club. I tried to surrepticiously take a snap on my camera phone, but just blinded him with the flash and chickened out. I succeded in scaring him downstairs to the dancefloor, so I took the small boy downstairs and introduced him to his hero. We had to wait in the club for the first train, so loafed out at 5am and headed to the convenience store for some sustinence. I also managed to pick up an enormous cardboard box outside the store, the binmen taking it away refusing to let me have the dirty one and giving me a far cleaner one to cart back to Omiya. Yoriko was a bit bemused by me making a spectacle of myself, but it paid off. I can now pack almost all my worldly goods into one box. I can also fit a nice Japanese umbrella in there, which I was hoping for. They are far nicer than British ones.

On Sunday, we flitted between Shibuya and Shinjuku, where I dragged my laptop only to be told that I didn`t have a virus, I just didn`t know how to use the thing. Fortunately, my little beauty is very light, so it didn`t matter too much. We passed a street festival in Shibuya, which was a bit random as it`s usually one of the liveliest places in Tokyo. In the midst of the throng, we spotted some boys in thongs, very common at Japanese festivals and something that no one has yet been able to explain. I can understand the desire to throw off every item that decency allows in the Japanese summer heat, but why keep on your jacket? Rachel also got to lift the cart, a kind man who looked very much like a Dr Suess baddie ushering her in and pushing his friends out to make way.

On Monday, I broke the news to Yoshiko that I was leaving, which sparked tears. She was a bit emotional already as last week she`d been home to mark the anniversary of her father`s death. She travelled back to her home town to pray and visit his grave, something she generally can`t do as her family live so far away. I also told Mina, who was lovely about it and is trying to take the day off work to drive me to the airport. I have only met her a handful of times, but she was insisting on playing some part of my exit strategy. She also treated me to a fantastic meal at my favourite izakaya and told me a story about her friend from Okinawa who blames her move into Tokyo`s polluted atmosphere for the sudden sprouts of nasal hair she`s suffering! I`ll miss Mina, I think she and Yoriko could have been great friends and it`s a shame didn`t have longer to get to know them - though they might have ended up getting on my nerves, most people out here have at some point.

One of the teachers I work with has spent every available minute in the past week boring me until my ears bleed, boasting about all manner of insignificant things, from how lucky he was to go to a grammar school, to describing how he teaches every class. I was vaguely interested when he first told me these things, but he has yet to add anything new to his loop and it is driving me mad. Teaching seriously exaggerates a person`s sense of their own importance. It could be an act of kindness. I wonder if he is patronising me so painfully so I don`t miss Japan when I get home. I can`t see that I will. A few people seem to be conspiring to make my last few days as annoying as possible.

Not Jerry though. Last night I popped into the George to say hello and ended up staying until too late, drinking pink champagne and lamenting the state of Brits abroad woth George. The night was fairly hazy as the gin and champagne mixed, but I vaguely remember me and George teasing him about wearing his cowboy hat for riding on Sunday. If you`re reading this, Jerry, you have to.

Today was obviously quite difficult workwise, but the kids have tests all week. I`ve been threatening to deduct points for talking and been sitting down writing letters. There are so many ways to skive in teaching, it`s genius.